Saint Joseph Catholic Church

“Asceticism is not a matter of self-willed choices and subjective particularities, but of submission to the rule and the ‘catholic experience’ of the Church,” said the Ecumenical Patriarch, who holds a primacy of honor among the Orthodox churches. “Repentance, prayer, humility, forgiveness, fasting, and philanthropic deeds are interconnected and interwoven.”

The exhibit, “Ricordando Benedetto XVI: Verso il centenario della nascita” (Remembering Benedict XVI: Toward the centenary of his birth), opens tomorrow and will take place at the Diocesan Museum of Sacred Art in Pordenone, Italy.

Pope Benedict “was a respected and highly regarded interlocutor, even by all the great figures of secular thought,” said Bruno Kahl, Germany’s ambassador to the Holy See. Benedict XIV, he continued, showed that “discussion guided by reason can lead to good results and even to peace—even in the face of enormous contrasts, of an intellectual nature or in vision of the world. We have much to learn from Pope Benedict.”

In an unusual but not unprecedented move, Pope Leo XIV transferred a diocesan bishop in Côte d’Ivoire (Ivory Coast, map) to another diocese and named him an auxiliary bishop there.

The Prefecture of the Papal Household announced on February 19 that Pope Leo XIV will make six pastoral visits within Italy between May and August.

“As we receive ashes on our heads, we are called to an examination of conscience about our errors, but also about those that reverberate on a large scale,” Tornielli wrote in his editorial. Tornielli proposed an examination of conscience about “the tragic war in Ukraine,” “the total destruction of Gaza,” “countries where the free expression of popular protest is stifled in blood,” and “the perpetuation of the hecatomb that takes place in the Mediterranean Sea, with migrants drowning there.”

Pope Leo XIV met with priests of the Diocese of Rome on February 19 and encouraged them to rekindle the fire of the Spirit within them.

In brief remarks addressed to Pope Leo XIV, Cardinal Baldassare Reina alluded to “growing difficulties and a cultural climate that seems to want to put God aside.”